While counselor Jean Duley said the late Bruce E. Ivins expressed homicidal intentions, threatened her and said he "would go out in a blaze of glory" in the face of a pending FBI indictment, as least one former colleague believes the Fort Detrick scientist is being used as a scapegoat in the high profile anthrax poisoning case that paralyzed the nation -- again -- shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Arthur O. Anderson, a medical doctor and scientist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease at Fort Detrick, said Duley's description of Ivins doesn't match his impressions of a man with whom he worked for many years.

Ivins, who was about to be indicted by the FBI in the anthrax mailings that killed five people and injured 17 others, was described by Anderson as a hard-working individual with a high level of integrity and pride in both his workplace and his individual work.

The only perceived weakness that Anderson could discern, and not all people would consider it a weakness, he said, was that Ivins "had relatively thin skin."

"His personality style was such that he was sensitive to public opinion," Anderson said Sunday. "There are individuals in our community whose lives are centered around protesting government programs. They're not necessarily interested in facts, but pushing an agenda."

Ivins would take it personally when seemingly unfounded criticism was aimed at something he believed in, Anderson said.

"He was concerned with how the Institute was perceived and how he was perceived," Anderson said. "That manifested itself in the care he took in conducting his research."

As a health care professional and bioethicist -- he heads USAMRIID's Office of Human Use and Ethics -- Anderson said he takes issue with what he views as Duley's professional betrayal of Ivins.

"I can tell you very clearly that the minute a conflict of interest occurs in the caregiver-client relationship É she has to withdraw as the caregiver," he said. "She can't ethically continue to gather information or share information -- betray that trust -- without disclosing to her client that she is sharing what he believes is confidential, privileged information."

Anderson said that if he was to betray a patient's trust in such a manner, he would be subject to medical disciplinary procedures.

In commenting about remarks made by Duley when she applied to the District Court of Maryland for a Peace Order, Anderson said he was amazed that a judge would allow hearsay to be entered on the record.

Duley referred to comments allegedly made by Ivins' psychiatrist about Ivins' homicidal and sociopathic tendencies, without confirmation to the court that the doctor actually made the comments.

"The remaining allegations about murderous ideas and plans sound so foreign to me that in the absence of contemporaneously documented evidence I would have to consider them items of Ms. Duley's vivid imagination or information fed to her by the people she communicated with outside the therapeutic environment," Anderson wrote in an e-mail to the News-Post. "It is not at all surprising to me that a patient whose therapist is serving as a double agent 'therapist' and 'accuser' would become very angry with the therapist and might make some rather dramatic expressions of that anger."

The doctor and scientist paused briefly after being asked if he believes Ivins committed suicide.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "I think all of the circumstances put him in a place where he felt he had no place to go."

Anderson said he became aware in June that the FBI had taken items out of Ivins' lab.

"The FBI took all of the stored things in his lab freezer," Anderson said. "They basically destroyed his life's work. I think that's what upset him the most."

Anderson said it is "highly incomprehensible" to him that Ivins would be regarded as the perpetrator in this case simply because he had access to anthrax.

He said he last saw Ivins around July 6. Ivins told him the FBI was stalking him, following him everywhere, Anderson said.

"He was animated and appropriately concerned, but certainly not out of control."

Anderson does not believe Ivins is responsible for the 2001 anthrax deaths.

"Now that he can't defend himself against the allegations, this will play out the way it will play out," he said.

But he firmly believes it wasn't guilt that killed his colleague and friend.

"I think it was the sense of betrayal and complete abandonment by those around him," Anderson said. "He cared so much and had so much pride in the work he did -- I don't think he could handle that sense of abandonment."

We’re supposed to think the FBI suddenly got its act together and found the right guy? If this guy was as unstable as they are saying he should not have had access. I seriously doubt he is the right guy.

There is NO WAY that the FBI would accuse the wrong man of such a serious charge.

Next thing you know you're going to tell me that they collude with the BATF to entrap innocent men belonging to politically incorrect groups, shoot their wives in the head, and kill their sons.

Or maybe you're going to tell me that they'd burn a couple of dozen children alive....... THEN after they burned those children, you're going to tell me that they used bulldozers to raze the crime scene so that nothing could be analyzed???

C'mon. Puheeze, this defies belief! The FBI doesn't do stuff like that.

6
posted on 08/04/2008 11:45:36 AM PDT
by Dick Vomer
(liberals suck....... but it depends on what your definition of the word "suck" is.,)

It has been reported that the woman who swore out the legal complaint against suicided scientist Bruce Ivins, Jean C. Duley, is 45 years old.

It has also been reported that the “C” stands for “Carol”.

After agreeing to the terms, fill in Jean Carol Duley for the name and search all records. You will find 7 cases for driving under the influence. The year of birth is correct for a 45 year old woman.

If this is indeed the same Jean C. Duley who set up Bruce Ivins, it goes a long way to explaining just why her specialty is counseling addicts, and why she might need a few favors from higher up to keep her driver's license! After all, Maryland has a “three strikes” law for drunk driving.

She was not a ‘therapist’. She was a social worker.

If Irvins was thinking about killing her why is she in hiding?

9
posted on 08/04/2008 11:47:46 AM PDT
by BGHater
(Democracy is the road to socialism.)

Additional key facts re: the anthrax investigation Its perfectly possible that Bruce Ivins really is the anthrax attacker  that he perpetrated the attacks and did so alone. Perhaps the FBI is in possession of mountains of conclusive evidence that, once revealed, will leave no doubt that Ivins is the guilty party. But no rational person could possibly assume that to be the case given the paltry amount of facts  many of which contradict one another  that are now known. Several points to note: (1) [I omit here liberal micro obsession with bentonite and one story from ABC in 2001. The Salon guy should move on.]

(2) So much of the public reporting about Ivins has been devoted to depicting him as a highly unstable psychotic who had been issuing extremely violent threats and who had a violent past. But that depiction has been based almost exclusively on the uncorroborated claims of Jean Carol Duley, a social worker (not a psychiatrist or psychologist) who, as recently as last year, was apparently still in college at Hoods College in Frederick, Maryland. Duleys scrawled handwritten complaint against Ivins, seeking a Protective Order, has served as the basis for much of the reporting regarding Ivins mental state, yet it is hardly the model of a competent or authoritative professional. Quite the opposite.

Duley herself has a history that, at the very least, raises questions about her credibility. She has a rather lengthy involvement with the courts in Frederick, including two very recent convictions for driving under the influence  one from 2007 and one from 2006  as well as a complaint filed against her for battery by her ex-husband. Here is Duleys record from the Maryland Judicial data base:

Just three months ago, Duley pled guilty and was sentenced to probation (and fined $1,000), as a result of having been stopped in December, while driving at 1:35 a.m., and charged with driving under the influence:

On April 21, 2006, Duley was also charged with driving a vehicle while impaired by alcohol, driving while impaired by drugs or alcohol, and reckless driving, and on October 13, 2006, she pled guilty to the charge of reckless driving and was fined $580. Back in 1992, Duley was criminally charged with battery against what appeared to be her now-ex-husband (and she filed a complaint against him as well). Later that same year, she was criminally charged with possession of drug paraphenalia with intent to use, charges which appear to have been ultimately dismissed.

Prior to the restraining order against Ivins which Duley obtained two weeks ago, Ivins had no criminal record at all, at least not in Frederick. A story in todays Frederick News-Post quotes Duleys fiancee as claiming: She had to quit her job and is now unable to work, and we have spent our savings on attorneys. But she doesnt appear to have used an attorney for her complaint against Ivins. If anything, her savings were likely depleted from attorneys fees, court costs, and fines and probation for her various criminal proceedings (Larisa Alexandrovna has more details on Duley).

None of this is to defend Ivins, nor is to suggest that this constitutes evidence that Duley is lying or is otherwise inaccurate in her claims. As I said, its perfectly possible that Ivins is guilty of being the anthrax attacker. I have no opinion on whether he is. The point is that nobody should have any opinion on that question  one way or the other  until they see the FBIs evidence.

What is certain is that Jean Carol Duley is hardly some upstanding, authoritative source on Bruce Ivins psychological state or his guilt, nor is she some accomplished and highly credible psychological professional, notwithstanding the fact that most media depictions of Ivins are based on uncritical recitations of her accusations. The fact that her depiction contradicts not only the claims of virtually everyone else who knew Ivins but also numerous facts about how Ivins was treated even by the FBI (see below), suggests that a large amount of skepticism is warranted.

(3) The initial report from The Los Angeles Times David Willman said that Ivins committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him for the attacks. But an article from The New York Times Scott Shane this morning reported that the evidence against Ivins was largely circumstantial and that the grand jury in Washington was planning to hear several more weeks of testimony before issuing an indictment.

According to The Washington Post, Ivins enjoyed full-scale clearance at Fort Detrick as late as July 10  hardly what one would expect if the FBI were so certain that he was the anthrax attacker. And judging from an article in todays local Frederick newspaper, The Frederick-News Post Online, the FBI is still searching for evidence against Ivins, as they removed two computers from a public library there.

Members of Congress with some personal stake in this case and who have been attempting to assert some oversight on the FBIs investigation over the last six years  Tom Daschle, Pat Leahy, Rush Holt  have been uniformly critical of how it has been handled. Numerous experts continue to raise serious doubts about whether Ivins even had the ability to access and handle anthrax of the type that was sent to Daschle and Leahy. Maybe the FBIs evidence demonstrates that he could and did. Maybe it doesnt. But under all circumstances, its inconceivable that anyone would be content with having the FBI simply keep its alleged evidence to itself and not have a full public airing and accounting of what has happened here, an accounting that should include the news organizations  led by ABC  which are in possession of vital information that they continue to conceal.

10
posted on 08/04/2008 11:48:36 AM PDT
by Shermy
(I'm very proud of America giving me this opportunity. It's a sign of enormous growth in this country)

If this guy was as unstable as they are saying he should not have had access.

That's for darn sure! Remember way back when Hatfill was the main suspect in the early days? They not only terminated all his contracts, they went out of their way to force L.S.U. to not hire him when they were about to give him a job. They made him unemployable!

Now we're supposed to believe that this guy was under intense scrutiny for at least a year, yet he was able to keep his job almost right up until his death? It stinks like a rotten fish.

I have been a close friend of Dr. Bruce Ivins for years. The FBI needed a scapegoat, especially after Stephen Hatfill, whose foot the FBI ran over, won a $5.2 M lawsuit against them.

The new FBI director needed a capture in this case. So, they took all of the Ft. Detrick anthrax researchers and put them under intense interrogation.

Bruce was a mild, meek and sensitive scientist. The FBI showed his clinically depressed daughter, who was institutionalized in a mental hospital, photos of the anthrax victims, and said “your father did this.” They offered his son $2.5 M and a sportscar if he would “rat” on his father.

Bruce could not stand stand up to the constant harrasment by the FBI. So we have lost a very talented researcher, so that the FBI can close the case...

Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital, an apparent suicide.

Duley, 45, filed for a peace order against him July 24 in Frederick County District Court, accusing him of stalking, threats and harassment. A temporary peace order was granted that day.

Duley's fiance of seven years, Mike McFadden, spoke to The Frederick News-Post on Saturday from their home in Williamsport and provided a statement on her behalf.

"Jean is currently at an undisclosed location," McFadden said.

Duley had numerous meetings with the FBI in the past month, McFadden said, but he declined to provide specific information about those meetings.

He said Ivins had threatened Duley's life.

Court documents state that Ivins had made "homicidal threats, actions, plans, threats and actions towards therapist."

Duley, a social worker, led counseling sessions attended by Ivins.

The story of Ivins' death and investigation by the FBI broke early Friday. Since then, McFadden said, Duley has been hounded by the national press.

Someone broke into her car Friday night, McFadden said, though no police report was filed. "Nothing was taken," he said, "but everything was jumbled up."

Duley told the court she had been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury Friday. She was reluctant to become involved in the FBI's investigation of Ivins, McFadden said. "She had to quit her job and is now unable to work, and we have spent our savings on attorneys."

McFadden would not provide any specific information about Duley's involvement with Ivins or the investigation.

"Jean is the kind of person who believes her life is insignificant in comparison with the kind of damage Dr. Ivins is capable of," he said. "She sacrificed all this stuff because she wanted to do the right thing. She'll soon reveal what many wouldn't because they didn't want to be involved with it."

At the request of her attorney, Duley is unable to say anything, McFadden said. "She'd appreciate some semblance of privacy."

-snip- Maryland's chief medical examiner, Dr. David Fowler, confirmed Saturday that the cause of Ivins' death was found to be an overdose of acetaminophen, the active drug in Tylenol; and that it was ruled a suicide based on information from police and doctors, according to the AP.

Kimberly Thomas, a forensic examiner with the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, would not comment Saturday on results from Ivins' autopsy or confirm Dr. Fowler's statement.

Despite the widespread publicity following Ivins' death, Keeney and Basford Funeral Home said Saturday that the family had made no changes to funeral arrangements announced Friday in his obituary. A memorial service is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Frederick, followed by a reception at the church parish hall.

Ivins' wife Diane refused to comment today from the couple's home on Military Road in Frederick. Their two children posted messages to their father on their Facebook pages Wednesday. Daughter Amanda wrote, "forever my hero, forever in my heart, forever my daddy Ã rest in peace I will always love you!!" Son Andy wrote, "I will miss you Dad. I love you and I can't wait to see you in Heaven. Rest in peace. It's finally over." -snip -

18
posted on 08/04/2008 12:03:53 PM PDT
by Shermy
(I'm very proud of America giving me this opportunity. It's a sign of enormous growth in this country)

We’ll never know, because we can’t investigate the FBI, so we have to take their word for it.
We’ll never know why (or if) a guy who could kill half a dozen people with fancy anthrax, would take his own life with acetaminophen; a very slow, un-failproof and uphill way to die.

Many friends and colleagues of Bruce Ivins, a government researcher who was under investigation for the anthrax attacks of 2001, have said they are certain that investigators are pointing to the wrong man. But at least one family member says he believes the allegations: Ivins' brother, Tom.

Tom Ivins, who lives in Middletown, Ohio, admits he hasn't spoken to his younger brother Bruce since 1985. He won't say why, except that there's no law that requires him to maintain contact.

"I don't owe him anything," Tom Ivins says.

Tom says he used to give his little brother rides in his bicycle basket when they were kids, but "we didn't play together because I was very athletic myself."

Their father was a pharmacist and their mother was a homemaker in Lebanon, Ohio. Tom played football in high school, while Bruce ran cross-country. But Tom says his brothers, Bruce and Charles, shared a disturbing family trait.

"They grew up with that attitude  I didn't  that they were omnipotent," Tom Ivins says.

He says there were no signs that something was wrong with his brother when they were younger, but he thinks pressure from law enforcement probably led to Bruce's suicide.

Tom says he is a much stronger man than Bruce was  proven by the way Tom says he handled questioning about the case by the FBI.

"They asked me a few questions, like 'What were you like growing up,' like family history questions, and I didn't buckle like the walls of Jericho coming tumbling down under their questioning, but it seems my two brothers did," he says. "Charles was not as strong as I am, nor was Bruce."

When asked if there's anything he liked about his brother, Tom replies, "No, I didn't."

He says he isn't sorry his brother is dead.

Charles Ivins declined to speak with NPR. But several of Bruce's friends and neighbors were eager to defend him.

Jaye Holly lived next door to the Ivins family in Frederick, Md., before moving to upstate New York a month ago  and she still can't process what she's hearing in the news with the man she knew.

"I was just stunned because it does not reflect the neighbor we had known for three years. I can't imagine that Bruce would have been involved in such a thing," Holly says.

Holly says everyone knew the neighborhood where so many employees of Fort Detrick lived was being watched.

"We knew that there was surveillance happening in the neighborhood, but we never knew who the surveillance was on," Holly says. "Because we knew that Bruce worked at Fort Detrick, we knew that he worked with pathogens, it was a possibility that the surveillance was on him, but it was such a remote possibility that we sort of dismissed it."

Dr. Kenneth Hedlund, who worked with Bruce Ivins at Fort Detrick, says he thinks the government needed a scapegoat. He says the FBI was under a lot of pressure after paying nearly $6 million to Steven Hatfill  another researcher who had been under suspicion in the anthrax attacks.

"Unfortunately, Bruce Ivins was a good guy  he was probably more vulnerable, and with the pressure they applied to him, they forced him to this position," Hedlund says.

-snip-"It's a damn shame that they've chosen him as a fall guy, and I think they've chosen him as a fall guy because he was too human," Hedlund says.

Several of Ivins' neighbors said they believe the government had the wrong man  and suggest that perhaps the real killer is still out there.

22
posted on 08/04/2008 12:18:42 PM PDT
by Shermy
(I'm very proud of America giving me this opportunity. It's a sign of enormous growth in this country)

NPR.org, August 3, 2008 · Government investigators tell NPR that they were still several major legal steps away from indicting army researcher Dr. Bruce Ivins for the 2001 anthrax attacks when he killed himself this past week.

While they had written up the case and told officials at the Department of Justice they were prepared to go forward, the department had not yet approved the case. What is more, the evidence against Ivins had not yet been presented in its entirety to a grand jury and jurors had not yet been asked to vote on an indictment. That process could have taken weeks.

There had been some media reports saying that Ivins killed himself on Tuesday because he had been told that he was going to be indicted imminently. People close to the case told NPR that the FBI had a discussion with Ivins’ lawyer and had presented him with some of the evidence in the case.

But the idea at the time was to convince Ivins’ lawyer that it was in his client’s best interest to admit to mailing envelopes with anthrax in the fall of 2001. People close to the investigation said it wasn’t so much a plea discussion as the FBI making clear that they were steaming toward an indictment of Ivins.

The FBI is expected to provide a briefing on the evidence as early as midweek. The timing depends on a number of factors.

The case has to be formally closed before the FBI is no longer bound by grand jury secrecy requirements. -snip -

23
posted on 08/04/2008 12:20:33 PM PDT
by Shermy
(I'm very proud of America giving me this opportunity. It's a sign of enormous growth in this country)

“Duley herself has a history that, at the very least, raises questions about her credibility. She has a rather lengthy involvement with the courts in Frederick, including two very recent convictions for driving under the influence  one from 2007 and one from 2006  as well as a complaint filed against her for battery by her ex-husband. Here is Duleys record from the Maryland Judicial data base:

Just three months ago, Duley pled guilty and was sentenced to probation (and fined $1,000), as a result of having been stopped in December, while driving at 1:35 a.m., and charged with driving under the influence:

On April 21, 2006, Duley was also charged with driving a vehicle while impaired by alcohol, driving while impaired by drugs or alcohol, and reckless driving, and on October 13, 2006, she pled guilty to the charge of reckless driving and was fined $580. Back in 1992, Duley was criminally charged with battery against what appeared to be her now-ex-husband (and she filed a complaint against him as well). Later that same year, she was criminally charged with possession of drug paraphenalia with intent to use, charges which appear to have been ultimately dismissed.”

very very interesting.
So basically, anything she has to say ought to be tossed out, and then look at what is left.

Lebanon, Ohio - Barbara Weisenfelder didn't believe the FBI agents for one minute. They had told the director of this village's historical museum that they had come all the way from Washington to interview residents as part of an insurance fraud investigation.

The agents said Bruce Ivins, 62, the youngest son of the town's long-deceased druggist, had faked his death. And they wanted to know everything about him and his family. They even inquired about the name of the architect and contractor who built the family's beige-colored, single-story home on Orchard Avenue in the 1930s.

"We knew who they were checking on, and that's all we needed to know," Weisenfelder, 77, said yesterday, recalling the agents' visits in 2007 and 2008.

She called up an Internet-savvy friend, who Googled Ivins' name. The search produced an October 2004 article from USA Today about Ivins' failure to report contamination at his bio-defense lab at Fort Detrick. Weisenfelder said she "put two and two together" and then shared what she learned with other volunteer curators at the museum, a brick Colonial building that was once a gymnasium....

As many as four agents - from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Postal Service - came to two of their regular Wednesday meetings asking lots of questions....Did they know of a school or cemetery named Greendale?

..."They mostly asked a lot of questions we couldn't answer," such as the name of the architect who designed and the contractor who built the house, said [homeowner] Mike McMurray. "They wanted to know if they could have a look around. I said, 'Yes,' but they never did."

26
posted on 08/04/2008 12:37:25 PM PDT
by Shermy
(I'm very proud of America giving me this opportunity. It's a sign of enormous growth in this country)

Thanks. Now to find out what relationship this Jean Carol Duley has to other persons involve in the case ~ e.g. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, or any of the Columbia University faculty, or their associates in the various Foundations affiliated with the university.

Could be fun, but every time I dig down in that group I keep coming up with the same bunch of pukes.

28
posted on 08/04/2008 12:46:25 PM PDT
by muawiyah
(We need a "Gastank For America" to win back Congress)

I tend to believe the FBI here, mainly because the FBI initially leaked another suspect, who eventually cleared himself and got a boatload of money in a settlement. There was an example of a path he could take to clear himself and even make some money in the process, but he chose not to go that direction.

WASHINGTON — The top suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks was obsessed with a sorority that sat less than 100 yards away from a New Jersey mailbox where the toxin-laced letters were sent, authorities said Monday. Multiple U.S. officials told The Associated Press that former Army scientist Bruce Ivins was long obsessed with the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma, going back as far as his own college days at the University of Cincinnati.

The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

The bizarre link to the sorority may indirectly explain one of the biggest mysteries in the case: why the anthrax was mailed from Princeton, N.J., 195 miles from the Army biological weapons lab the anthrax is believed to have been smuggled out of.

An adviser to the Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter at Princeton University confirmed she was interviewed by the FBI in connection with the case.

U.S. officials said e-mails or other documents detail Ivins’ long-standing fixation on the sorority. His former therapist has said Ivins plotted revenge against those who have slighted him, particularly women. There is nothing to indicate, however, he was focused on any one sorority member or other Princeton student, the officials said.

Despite the connection between Ivins and the sorority, authorities acknowledge they cannot place the scientist in Princeton the day the anthrax was mailed. That remains a hole in the government’s case. Had Ivins not killed himself last week, authorities would have argued he could have made the seven-hour round trip to Princeton after work.

Ivins’ attorney, Paul F. Kemp, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Monday but has asserted his client’s innocence and said he would have been vindicated in court.

32
posted on 08/04/2008 12:51:36 PM PDT
by Shermy
(I'm very proud of America giving me this opportunity. It's a sign of enormous growth in this country)

Wow! Tom Ivins is bad-mouthing both of his brothers publicly, and actually says that he isn't sorry that he's dead. Man!

He accuses his brothers of having feelings of "omnipotence", yet he sounds to me like he's gotten a pretty darn high opinion of himself as well. I wonder if he's estranged from his whole entire family. There's obviously a lot more to this family story than we'll ever know.

Dr. Bruce Ivans was 62 according to Wikipedia, so therefore, according to the story you cite, he hasn't seen his brother since he was 39. That would make sense...if he hasn't seen him in 23 years, maybe it is because he doesn't like him.

s many as four agents - from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Postal Service - came to two of their regular Wednesday meetings asking lots of questions....Did they know of a school or cemetery named Greendale?

“He accuses his brothers of having feelings of “omnipotence”, yet he sounds to me like he’s gotten a pretty darn high opinion of himself as well. I wonder if he’s estranged from his whole entire family. There’s obviously a lot more to this family story than we’ll ever know.”

Contrast that to the way the unabomber’s brother reacted to his sibling’s descent into insanity.
He claimed love for his brother. He was saddened by his mental collapse, and turned him in to protect him from himself.

Anthrax Suspect Bruce Ivins
This is a rush transcript from “America’s Election HQ,” August 1, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.HEATHER NAUERT, HOST: There is more breaking news today: The pieces of the nearly seven-year-old puzzle may be coming together. The 2001 anthrax attacks, the mystery may have been solved after all this time.Today, we learned that a top Army microbiologist was the same scientist who is developing a vaccine against anthrax — well, he, apparently killed himself just as prosecutors were getting ready to indict him for the worst bio-terror attack in United States history. The 2005 strike killed five people and sickened more than a dozen others. It crippled the U.S. postal system for weeks and weeks and sent an already-shaken America deeper into fear just after the 9/11 attacks.Now, this guy’s name was Bruce Ivins, he was 62 years old. And we’re taking a picture — a look at a picture of him right now. He once examined anthrax-laced letter that was sent to Senator Patrick Leahy years ago. Watch Heather’s interviewRelatedColumn Archive
Case Closed? Does Anthrax Suspect’s Suicide Mean the Investigation Into 2001 Attacks Is Over? Lawmakers Propose to Legalize MarijuanaHave Doctors Found a Way to Kill HIV?Sordid Details From Oprah School TrialStudy: New Strategy Needed vs. Al QaedaFull-page Transcripts ArchiveVideo
Watch Heather Nauert’s interview Show Info
Airs Weekdays at 5 p.m. ET
E-mail the show: billandmegyn@foxnews.com Bill Hemmer’s bio Megyn Kelly’s bio Transcript archive But we’re going to kick off with a live report from our very own reporter, Catherine Herridge. She is the one who broke the news that scientists at Fort Detrick, were under suspicion in this case, months — well, actually years ago.Catherine, this has been a busy day for you. What all unfolded today?CATHERINE HERRIDGE, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, there are several important developments really, Heather.First of all, in March of this year, we were the first to report that the FBI had, in fact, narrowed their pool of suspects to four and we were able to confirm that all of them were tied to Fort Detrick, this is the Army’s bioweapons research facility in Maryland and among that group was an Army scientist we now know that was Bruce Ivins.The information about Ivins is very significant because independently, we were able to obtain an e-mail forwarded by Ivins in 2005 and that e-mail claims that the powder in the anthrax letter was virtually identical to powder that was being made at Fort Detrick.Now, today, friends of Bruce Ivins told me that they believe Ivins was an honorable man and that he was one of the first people to draw attention to the Army base in Maryland as a likely source of the powder, also as the likely source of the base, if you will, for the person who sent those letters.Others would say that all of Ivins’ efforts were really an effort to deflect the suspicion away from him.There are other developments today. We were able to obtain court documents from the state court in Maryland. These documents suggest that the last weeks of Bruce Ivins’ life were very tumultuous and very tortured.A restraining order was taken out against him by an individual we believe was his therapist. And in those court documents, it says that the therapist believes Ivins had homicidal tendencies, could be violent, and that he was under investigation by the FBI and would be charged with five capital murder offenses at some point this year. That’s significant, because five Americans were killed in the anthrax attacks in 2001.I think that the bottom line for people is that everything over the last seven years and now, especially in the last 24 hours, and in the last few months that we’ve been really honing in on this case, it shows that it was not some foreign extremist who launched the worst bioterror attack on U.S. soil, in fact, it now appears that it was an Army insider.NAUERT: Yes.HERRIDGE: An Army insider who was responsible for this attack.NAUERT: And, Catherine, I think, a lot of folks would agree that that’s the most troubling thing of all. Catherine Herridge, thank you so much for bringing that to us.HERRIDGE: You’re welcome.NAUERT: So, the question is now — was Ivins the perpetrator that the feds have been looking for all this time?With us now is Greg Esslinger. He’s a former FBI special agent in counterterrorism.Greg, thanks for joining us. Let me start by asking you.GREG ESSLINGER, FORMER FBI COUNTERTERROR AGENT: No problem.NAUERT: You know, the Army said that this guy exhibited very unusual behavior after the attacks. Of course, this was quite some time ago. So, why — and he apparently was also testing some of these anthrax outside of what they considered the “safety zone” to be. So, why are we only hearing about this now? Why really only zeroing in on him and getting — indict him at this point?ESSLINGER: Well, you know, understand that these investigations can take a long time, even if there are some relative suspicions that the Bureau can follow up on, there’s still a need to build enough evidence to the level where the prosecutors can actually file an indictment. So, a suspicion or suspicious activity or somebody doing something that looks unusual is only the first step in an investigation and to actually build a full case against someone, often takes more than a year or even years.NAUERT: And it’s hard for a lot of folks to imagine that this could potentially be an American who is responsible for this, let alone someone who pledged to protect his country in working for the United States Army. Any chance of this could all be a big mistake?ESSLINGER: Well, I think, you know, with the person no longer alive to truly question and determine what the involvement was, it is going to be a question that may remain out there and whether or not this person did it by themselves, I think, is part of the biggest question in my mind or whether he was complicit, if he is guilty, with others. So, unless there’s other evidence that can point in that direction, it may be really hard to solve this case.NAUERT: And just quickly, what happens to the investigation now? He’s gone. They’re going to continue to talk to other people, I imagine, but are they going to want to pin this on him to just try to have this sewed up?ESSLINGER: Well, I think they definitely want to close the investigation. I think it’s been a very difficult investigation for the FBI. Obviously, a number of people were killed. So, this really — it’s a capital murder crime and the Bureau is very keen on getting some closure to it as anyone would be and all of America is.So, they will continue to investigate so they can try to get some closure, but that closure, obviously, could be quite difficult now, given the fact that a prime suspect is no longer with us.NAUERT: All right. Greg Esslinger, thank you so much for joining us.ESSLINGER: You bet.

But in an e-mail obtained by FOX News, scientists at Fort Detrick openly discussed how the anthrax powder they were asked to analyze after the attacks was nearly identical to that made by one of their colleagues.

"Then he said he had to look at a lot of samples that the FBI had prepared ... to duplicate the letter material," the e-mail reads. "Then the bombshell. He said that the best duplication of the material was the stuff made by [name redacted]. He said that it was almost exactly the same his knees got shaky and he sputtered, 'But I told the General we didn't make spore powder!'"

"the stuff made by [name redacted]"

Reading Fox today, it doesn't sound like "Ivins" is the redacted name.

46
posted on 08/04/2008 1:11:40 PM PDT
by Shermy
(I'm very proud of America giving me this opportunity. It's a sign of enormous growth in this country)

I don’t know, I see the opposite view...maybe Tom had good reason to keep his distance from the rest of the family if they were as strange as he says they are. I’ve known people like him that have disowned their families for one reason or another. Heck, I sometimes joke that I had to have been adopted and I am still searching for my real family ; )

One of the weakest links in the FBI's concept of how and where the letters were mailed arises in the consideration of this collection box on the Princeton campus.

I think it's at this point that the FBI STOPPED consulting with postal officials and experts.

Here's the situation ~ they found anthrax contamination in and on the collection box.

There are two ways this can happen. One is that a letter or two gets mailed and releases contamination on the way in. The other way is that a contaminated mail collection container is placed in the box. It releases anthrax spores that then contaminate the inside of the box and the letter drop area, and some may even waft outside and contaminate the outside.

We do not know that anyone ever mailed an anthrax letter at that collection box but we know with certainty that hundreds, if not thousands or even tens of thousands of contaminated postal letter and flat mail containers were released into the postal system from Brentwood facility LONG BEFORE the first case of anthrax was discovered.

We also know that the closest MPC (Mail Processing Center) to Princeton is in Central New Jersey and it was thoroughly contaminated with anthrax that then contaminated every letter and flat tray coming into or leaving the building. That particular MPC served Princeton (among other places).

The FBI simply discarded the idea that a collection box could have been contaminated by a piece of contaminated postal mail handling equipment, to wit, a letter or flat tray.

New flat trays are placed inside each collection box every day!

If this is the sort of evidence that the FBI hoped to use against Dr. Ivins they'd had best hope that no one who'd ever worked for USPS sat on a jury.

49
posted on 08/04/2008 1:14:42 PM PDT
by muawiyah
(We need a "Gastank For America" to win back Congress)

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